Bishop England kids arrested

I have to take a brief moment to recognize a tragic event related to sports that's a little bit closer to home. Yesterday, three teenagers from Charleston were arrested for assaulting a 15-year old from a rival school. The three guys were football players from Bishop England High School, a private catholic school on Daniel Island right outside of Charleston. The victim was a 15-year old from my own Porter-Gaud School, the arch-rival of Bishop England.

According to the story in the local paper, the unidentified juvenile:

...Told police his vehicle hit a curb in the parking lot in front of the school as he left.

When he stopped on Seven Farms Drive to check for damage to the vehicle, three young men approached him and assaulted him with closed fists, according to the report.

The three assailants surrendered on Tuesday morning and are charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature. Officials from both schools have said that sporting events between them have been canceled for the rest of the year.

This is not the first time that the rivalry has gotten ugly. In 1997, students from each school escalated a prank war to a embarrassing point where school officials had to pay thousands of dollars in property damage.

Even in my time at Porter-Gaud, we always wanted to beat Bishop England in sports, but there was never a time where I didn't feel safe on their campus. Oftentimes, elite private schools like PG and BE cloak themselves in themselves in honor codes and preach responsibility to a point where they advertise how well behaved their students are (sound familiar?). But then something like this happens to remind everyone that thick wallets, AE clothing and fancy school buildings cannot really ever protect anyone from idiots who are itching to pick a fight.

I hope that Porter and B.E. get this thing sorted out, because I would hate for the students and alums of both schools to start pointing fingers and being completely distrustful of the other over the stupid actions of a couple of kids. Judging by the online commentary and the barbershop gossip around town (I was actually in a barbershop today, so I'm not just making this up), this has already become a huge issue where everyone is enthralled by the wrongdoings of some wealthy kids.

While I know that this whole post might resound as wholly elitist and extremely idealistic, I don't believe that this sort of stuff should just be sluffed off as "boys will be boys." The argument that a little roughing up between rivals has been going on for decades doesn't hold water with me anymore. I don't believe that sporting events should give us all license to verbally and physically assault our "opponents" without consequence because it was within the emotion of the game. I certainly wouldn't want my kid's obituary to read "he died fighting for the honor of the Porter-Gaud Cyclone." Screw that. Sports should be about overcoming those obstacles in yourself, not trampling the obstacles presented by another person and taking that person down in the act.